Super Bowl
I’m in the middle of presenting a Super Bowl script when the client’s phone rings.
“Sorry, I have to take this. It’s Ludacris.”
We’re in a WeWork in downtown San Francisco. The workspace isn’t the first red flag, but it’s the biggest. I’m holding a two million dollar script in a meeting room the client is renting for $8 dollars a chair. And I’m standing.
Two months before, I was brought in to write a few headlines for a new professional football league, the Alliance of American Football. Today, I’m waiting for the reality TV producer/CEO to finish this phone call, so I can continue presenting commercials he’s not interested in. I'm overly-invested in making a Super Bowl commercial.
None of us realize the league will collapse in a few months when the Feds step in and arrest the lead investor for bank fraud, wire fraud and some crypto shenanigans I’m not smart enough to understand.
Leading up to all that, we’re creating marketing/promotion material for each team in eight cities. And we’re filming an anthem spot, so there is a sliver of hope for the Super Bowl.
At one point, I’m in a large broom closet in a high school locker room with Troy Polamalu. The sound recordist is crammed in with us. I’m trying to get an anthemic VO read at the end of a long shoot day. Troy is kind and comically soft spoken. I ask this 2x Super Bowl Champion/8x pro bowl-er to reread the anthem in his angriest voice. I ruin every take. I can't contain my laughter. He’s just too nice. Luckily, he’s also laughing.
When we get back, I brief the interns. I tell them no idea is off the table. If you’re excited about it, write it. They deliver. They have the best script in the building. It's not even close. The CCO is visibly nervous. He refuses to present it to the client.
I’m asked to write a Bill Murray script. “But he’s a baseball guy.” Whatever, I write it and send it off. Two weeks. No one can find him. His brother says he came back from New Zealand with a new girlfriend, turned his phone off. They corner him somewhere, pitch the idea. “But I’m a baseball guy.” Whatever. He reads the script and says, “Let me check my horoscope.” We never hear from him again.
It's crunch time. We stop waiting for the client. Jeff Bridges loves our idea, because we're the only agency not asking him to be The Dude again. The client hates Jeff Bridges. I almost quit. Who hates Jeff Bridges?
Now, I’m on a conference call with Michael Bay. In true form, he’s blown up our idea. I want to be mad, but his rewrite is incredible. We’re excited. He’s on board. Allison Janney is ready. We’re down to the last day. We just need a check from the client.
The feds get there first. The money is frozen. Phones go dead.
I’m sent home. No Super Bowl spot. I have questions. I let it go. I take my son to Golden Gate Park. We row around Stow Lake and quack at the ducks.
Six months later, I read an investigative piece in Sports Illustrated. All of those questions are answered.
InsideOut Project
I’m asked to fly to LA to interview for a freelance job. It only sounds insane because it is. I’m told I’d be working directly for advertising legend Lee Clow. I need to be vetted in person. I practice my smile and get on a plane.
I arrive at the agency. I am not allowed in. Someone exits, talks to me for ten minutes, then goes back in. Another person exits, talks to me and so on. This goes on for a few hours. “Thank you for your time.” I never meet Lee. I fly home. I get a note saying I passed the lobby chit-chat test. Can I start next week?
First day at the agency. I’m asked to jump on a different brief. No problem. Lee wants to run a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal for a non-profit immigration initiative called Inside Out Project. No images. Just copy. Can I have it ready to show him tomorrow? Si, puedo.
Next day, I’m being led to a room to meet Lee. “He left his hearing aids at the racquet club this morning. You’ll need to yell.” I walk in and my eyes go right to his feet. He’s wearing flip flops. He shouldn’t be. It’s a gnarly scene. Someone close by is eating a salad. I don’t know how.
HI LEE MY NAME IS RAY NICE TO MEET YOU
HI RAY
We politely yell with one another for a few minutes. I like him immediately. He is a unique presence. Gruff but warm. I’m intimidated but also somehow relaxed. I hand him two pieces of paper, wishing they were socks. He reads one. Then the other. Folds both in half, stacks them.
THE FIRST HALF OF THIS ONE AND THE SECOND HALF OF THAT. FIX THE MIDDLE SO IT WORKS
OK THANK YOU LEE
We drink red wine. It might be noon? He gives me his email address.
SEND ME COPY WHENEVER YOU'D LIKE
Then he's gone. The head of strategy says under no circumstance am I to send Lee Clow copy without having her review it first. I laugh…. no one else is laughing…. why isn’t anyone laughing… oh shit, she’s serious. The Wall Street Journal ad runs a week later.
I stay on for eight months and produce a multi-million dollar campaign that never runs. I am told this is completely normal.
New Zealand
On a thirteen hour flight to New Zealand to produce some commercials, our middle aged director sat in first class while his 25 year old model girlfriend sat in coach with the rest of us. About an hour before landing, the director comes back and asks if she wants to switch. She tells him to go fuck himself.
I knew at that moment this was going to be a fantastic trip.
Nine days in New Zealand for a two day green screen shoot. The local Auckland production company found me some weed and took me surfing on a remote break I was not prepared to tackle. I went to an All Blacks rugby match. The team destroyed England, which prompted some fans to try and destroy the stadium.
We took a boat to our pre-pro dinner at a winery on some grassy, beautiful island. The director spent 45 minutes detailing George Bush’s role in 9/11. We all just waited it out. By this time, his girlfriend had already bailed on him and flew home. Presumably in a coach seat. I was having so much fun I went and got a tattoo.
The shoot was seamless.
I was smoking a joint with the client at the wrap party when he turned to me and said “I don’t like my balls. They’re old and hang too low. I’m thinking of getting one of those testicle lifts. Should I do it?”
I was caught off guard slightly but not offended.
The client was married, but closeted. It was an open secret that he was hooking up with our account guy. Unprofessional? Maybe. But it was also the reason we were on a nine day boondoggle to New Zealand. He wasn’t hitting on me. He seemed genuinely preoccupied with his old balls.
My stand up comic brain told me to say, “Well, let’s see ‘em then.” But my mouth said, “If it’s going to make you feel better about yourself, you should do it.” I never followed up to see if he did.
A few months later, he had a heart attack at home. Our account guy “just happened to be stopping by” and made the phone call that saved his life.
Art
I’m smoking a joint in the rain on the agency patio overlooking the Puget Sound. The local DEA office is directly below me. I’m thinking about the conversation I had with a senior writer during my job interview six months before.
“You seem like a nice person. Don’t take this job if they offer it.”
They offered. And I took it. My first advertising job. Six months of churning. Nothing to show. The senior writer was right.
On that patio I get a call from a number I don’t recognize. A career freelancer who’d come through for one of the many pitches we lost. Let’s call him Art.
“You’re a talented writer. Do you want to work together on a gig at Leo Burnett Detroit?”
“Thanks, but I’m waiting out my year, then moving to New York.
“You could make your annual salary in the next two months, but the gig starts tomorrow.”
I give the agency six hours notice. The CCO is screaming. It’s the most he’s ever said to me.
I learn Leo Burnett isn’t in Detroit during the hour long cab ride to Troy, Michigan. Our housing isn’t up to Art’s standards. He demands the agency pay for our stay at the Marriott. He's yelling. I’m uncomfortable.
We get a campaign approved in the first round. The studio needs our files. Art sends them in Quark. They ask him to resend in a non-obsolete format. Art starts yelling. I’m uncomfortable.
At the next internal, we learn they’re bringing in a second freelance team. Art starts yelling at the Executive Creative Director. I privately ask him to stop yelling at people. He starts yelling at me.
The other team arrives. Their rental car is vandalized. The next morning, everyone is looking at Art. Art isn't yelling. The agency sends us to New York to cut a brand video. They want us out of the building.
We have time to kill in NY. We go bowling. “$100 a game” Art says. I’m furious. I want to annihilate him. I’ve never bowled better. I lose $800. He wins eight straight games. That night, he's holed up in his room with a prostitute.
I go to a bar called Milanos. I don’t know who I am anymore. I think about my career decisions. I think about how my father never graduated from high school. I drink the single best Guinness I’ve ever had.
Next day, we see the cut. It’s great, except the music. The editor had his friend make a scratch track. Art starts yelling and gets in the editor's face. It nearly comes to punches. I pull him out of the room.
Now, I’m on a Manhattan sidewalk getting screamed at.
“I’M SICK OF PLAYING BAD COP WHY YOU’RE OVER THERE PLAYING GOOD COP”
“WE’RE NOT COPS” I yell as I point to two NYPD officers sitting in their car laughing at us. “THOSE ARE COPS”
My girlfriend walks up to meet us for dinner. We all go out to eat and pretend like nothing happened.
Leo Burnett wins the business. I move to NY and freelance at Ogilvy for a year. During that gig, my father calls and asks me for three thousand dollars. For once in my life, I have it.
I'm legitimately worried Art might read this and show up at my door.
Lee Clow Pt 2
My father started calling me lazy when I was just a toddler. So, as an adult, I didn’t share everybody’s Lee Clow anxiety. Disappointed old guy is a comfortable dilemma for me. But, I did notice a specific terror in the team’s voice before one creative internal. The issue:
I used the wrong push pins to secure the work to the boards.
“Lee is in the building. He’s on his way over. These all need to be silver push pins. The long ones.”
I’m guilty of using any old push pin stuck to my finger as I dig through the bowl. I suggest we let it fly, see if he says anything. “I’ll take the hit.” I’m overruled.
“It’s ok. You didn’t know. We’ll stall him while you fix it.”
People start scrambling like we’re trying to hide a dead hooker. I’m annoyed. This kind of blind obedience might be why Lee feels comfortable wearing flip flops when his feet look like a bag of broken snail shells. I like Lee. And I believe in body positivity. But I also believe in the power of a pedicure.
Anyway, I’m there to help create a campaign giving American public school students a loud speaker to the nation. It’s being funded by a billionaire who’s name I’m too afraid to mention. I’m told the White House is somehow involved. The NDA I sign is dizzying. The agency, and security surrounding it, remind me of Orwell’s 1984. The irony isn’t lost on me.
I’m assigned an intern who is genuinely fascinating. He grew up on the streets of New Orleans, literally singing for his supper. He works his way to Yale. Gets published. The Obama administration takes notice. He’s now navigating an ad agency for the summer. I’m the only hiccup in his meteoric rise. I’m asked to show him some copywriting basics. The first thing I teach him is how to surf. I go full Mr. Miyagi. He's concerned about sharks. “Don’t worry, most of them are back at the agency.”
I’m working with a brilliant art director. Our presentation is three hours long with another two hour conversation. The best presentation I’ve ever been a part of, easily. Everyone nails it. I can’t wait for Lee to open a bottle of wine. Lee also can’t wait for Lee to open some wine. He hugs me afterward. “Great job.” Thanks, Dad. I mean, Lee.
Things get strange from there. At one point, I'm asked to help sneak the Secretary of Education off of set after news vans descend on our production. “Hellll no” I say and walk over to craft services for a burrito.
Six months and millions of dollars later, we present an anthem rough cut and eight supporting commercials that get the entire project shut down. We proudly hold no punches in a fight to elevate the discussion around public education in the United States. It's too much. We used the wrong push pins.
I'm nervous about sharing the rest of this story. For once, I’m using some discretion here. I'll tell you over a cup of coffee sometime.
JWT NY
I’m in the lobby at J. Walter Thompson in NY, because I have no cell phone reception in the cubicle they gave me for my internship. An FBI agent is calling. I don’t know why.
“Is this Ray Connolly?”
Yes.
“Were you involved in an auto accident in Miami Beach a couple months ago?
Yes.
I rear-ended a brand new Cadillac with no plates on my way home after bailing my Bulgarian roommate out of the Dade County jail. He’d gone on a bender, lost his keys, and tried climbing through a window at three in morning. It wasn’t our window. Fortunately, he fell and passed out in the bushes. A terrified neighbor called 911.
I literally just met him. He’s also attended ad school. I burn a whole day waiting for him to be released. I’m speeding home, because there’s a drunk Bulgarian covered in vomit and urine in my passenger seat. I’m also trying to make a booked photo session. I see three raindrops on my windshield, a flurry of brake lights and I’m sliding toward a black Cadillac CTS. The man I hit couldn’t have been nicer. He doesn’t speak much English. He doesn’t want to exchange insurance. He doesn’t appear to care about this Cadillac at all. A traffic cop shows up, takes our info, then leaves. The Bulgarian is puking on the side of the MacArthur Causeway the whole time.
The FBI agent tells me they believe the man I hit is involved with a Colombian drug cartel. He was here illegally under an assumed identity. He left soon after. They didn’t know he was in the country. They seem pretty upset about it. They want to extradite him from Colombia and think my eyewitness testimony (along with the traffic cop who let him go) might help the Department of Justice.
“We’ll fly you down. It’ll only take a day.”
“Will you subpoena me if I say no?”
“No. We have the officers testimony. We just hope you feel compelled to do your civic duty.”
“Nooope.”
“You sure?
“Yep.”
“Have a nice day.”
I go back to my boring internship. Our cubicles are overrun with Dominos pizza paraphernalia from a recent shoot. We're invisible. I find a creative in an office down the hall and politely ask who her creative directors are. “Gotti and Gandhi” she says. One is Italian. One is Indian. I’m not sure if they’re aware of the nicknames. I'm not going to use them.
I poke my head into their office. I ask for work. They ask me who I am.
"I'm one of the interns guarding about two hundred empty Dominos pizza boxes." They hand me a shampoo brief. It’s awful. I’m grateful.
The old Bulgarian roommate moves to Brooklyn a month later and asks to borrow my car. He says it’s important. I reluctantly hand him the keys. He disappears for three weeks. Won’t answer his phone. He finally shows up at my door. I don't ask him where he's been. I'm pleasantly surprised the car in one piece. But I see it’s parked right in front of a fire hydrant. “Yeah, you better move it. They’ll tow it for sure.” And he's gone. Thanks, dick.
I go to move the car and see a dozen or so crumpled parking tickets in the passenger seat.
Ad School
My introduction to advertising is an undergraduate class at St. Cloud State University. The professor (and former industry hack) has a fake tan and gold chain swinging through exposed chest hair. He’s hitting on a student in the front row. Had I scripted him, any studio would tell me to dial it way back for believability. Someone tells him they’d like to get an internship in New York.
“You’ll probably never get a job in New York, Los Angeles or even Chicago. It’s not a realistic goal. Look locally.”
I’m livid. How could he casually suggest there’s no escaping St. Cloud, Minnesota? It feels like the easiest place to leave. I’m working toward a literature degree. But my hatred for this professor is nudging me toward an advertising career.
To pay for school I work at a credit union, wash dishes at a sandwich shop, and spend weekends selling suits at a department store called Herbergers. I swear to god that’s the name. My girlfriend works at a women’s clothing store called Casual Corner. I swear to god that’s the name.
I graduate with honors (toot toot). My girlfriend leaves me for a dentist. Which is extra painful for some reason.
I have a broken heart and a degree in literature, proof I can read a dusty novel. I don’t have a plan. I’ve worked hourly jobs since I was 15. I research copywriting and get a slick brochure from Miami Ad School. I apply. They’ve got me thinking I might not get accepted. My first business lesson. Perception vs Reality. If the check clears, you’re in.
The teachers are a mix of industry heavyweights, brilliant nobodies, and mediocre somebodies. Creative legend Nancy Rice is running the school and yelling at people for making ramen on the stove in the kitchen. Award-winning copywriters from Carmichael Lynch review our work at the bar downstairs.
A writer from an agency you’ve never heard of has us work on a real brief for a tuxedo rental business. He takes the work and sells it as his own. A student brings the newspaper ad into school like wtf?! I was furious. He didn’t use any of my lines. My work isn’t good enough to steal?
I’m having more fun than expected. I sign up for an internship at BBDO in Prague and hop on a plane.
The agency is in the rectory of an old church. My first day, I see a flat screen television up on the altar of a small chapel. I freeze. I was raised violently Catholic. This blasphemy is a love song to my heart. BBDO Prague is my first real creative department experience. To this day, one of the best. A group of lunatics sold me on advertising.
I come back to the states and finish the portfolio program. I fall in love again. I marry up. She's a better human. A better copywriter. And a loving mother. One day, years later, she comes out. We split, amicably. Not to say it was easy. But it made more sense than getting dumped for a dentist.
IRS
“I need to call you back. I’m about to get in a fight in Central Park.”
I’m on the phone, trying to convince an IRS agent not to put a lien on my father’s home. The call was already intense before a man thirty or forty yards away starts full-throat screaming and running at me.
I hang up on the IRS agent and finally hear what the guy is yelling.
RACCOON! RACCOON!
I look down. In front of me is a giant raccoon on its hind legs, hissing. I’m walking right into it. Some stranger almost gave me a heart attack saving me from rabies shots. New York City.
I call the IRS back. It’s a case of mistaken identity. My father’s only crime here is naming me after himself. I’m the person they’re looking for. I’ve been dodging back taxes and student loan payments for a couple years. I’m broke. I can’t find work.
I walk into every agency in Manhattan, portfolio in hand. It’s not going well because I don’t live in 1967. At no point am I ushered into the mail room to toil until my fateful elevator ride with the agency founder who walks away from our encounter believing the creative department could use a dose of my moxie.
No one will talk to me.
One place called Toy actually meets with me for thirty minutes and takes my book. They're so nice I'm not upset when the book arrives in the mail two weeks later with a pleasant rejection note.
I need help.
A recruiter gets me an interview with Deutsch in LA. I’m told not to stand near the CCO. “He’ll pass on you if he thinks you’re towering over him.” I enter his office and sit as quickly as possible. The interview goes well. I want this job.
The recruiter says I should also talk to Media Arts Lab down the street. I say no thank you. She sets up the meeting. I don’t like the idea of working on Apple. But, I also don’t like the IRS scaring my father on a daily basis. Granted, he used to hit me with a belt. He can handle a few sleepless nights while I get my shit together.
I interview at Media Arts Lab.
The people are smart and kind. They rush me through the building to the back patio. They don’t want me to see what they’re working on. Everyone knows it’s a phone. No one knows the “1984 won’t be like 1984” agency is ushering in an era of unprecedented surveillance. The Mac vs PC campaign is running and successful, but not my style. You can be an idiot or a douchebag. That’s my takeaway. I don’t say this. I say I’m afraid I’m going to be bored working on one client. An hour later, the recruiter who set up the meeting calls me.
Why would you say that in an interview?
It's important.
Deutsch looks fun. It’s that simple. They offer me the job. I take it. I move into a woman’s garage in Venice and bike to work. I grill chicken in the agency parking lot. I surf with creative delinquents every Sunday. I get at bats on most of the accounts. I’m not bored. I’m really, very lucky.
I set up a payment plan with the IRS and let my father stew a few more days before I tell him his stupid name is cleared.
Feeding America
I get a call for a job interview in San Francisco. I walk in and meet the receptionist, a 65 year old trans woman named Liz. She tells me to have a seat amid a collection of handmade throw pillows for sale. A minute later, she’s cursing at someone on the phone. I love her immediately.
I’m brought to the CCO’s office. He’s smoking a cigarette, feet on his desk.
“Thanks for coming in. I don’t really like your book.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“I like this headline.” He likes one sentence in my portfolio. It’s an ad others tell me to ditch. So, I’m listening. That’s all I can do. His monologue goes on for over an hour. At that point, he gets up and exits mid-sentence. I’m sitting in a smoky office, alone. The most unhinged interview, ever. The creative recruiter comes in. “Just work here for a year.”
I take the job and move to SF.
It’s stressful, but I genuinely like the people. I blow off steam performing stand up at night in North Beach. I don't go home after. I just keep drinking. I occasionally start waking up in public. One morning, I come to in Washington Square park with a knot on my head and what feels like a dislocated shoulder. No phone. No keys. Nothing, except a note in my pocket.
YOUR WALLET IS AT THE ROGUE ALE HOUSE
My mother sends me her AA handbook as a Christmas present. As a teenager, I would come home to see her reading it over a glass of wine.
I'm a mess off-hours but delivering at work.
I’m put on a Feeding America brief. The client wants a celebrity campaign. I write spots where an actor portrays an actual person struggling with hunger. That person then critiques the actor’s performance on camera, in the moment. We have a list of funny critiques. We don't show the actors. They have to take the hit on camera. Matt Damon, Taye Diggs and others love it. Ben Affleck shows up to set and refuses outright. Miley Cyrus does it, then says we can’t air the spot.
To source these stories, I’m interviewing people who rely on food banks to survive. I take walks after and cry. Families living in cars. Parents working two, three jobs. A man hands over his life savings so his elderly father can die comfortably. People getting crushed under the weight of this American experiment.
A year in, I’m writing scripts at a bar down the block when the whole agency walks in. We lost our three biggest clients before lunch. The ship sinks. Liz keeps her job as the receptionist for the other tenants. It’s always been her building.
Years later, I’m freelancing in LA and hop an early morning flight back to SF to surprise my wife on Valentine’s Day at her job downtown. She’s not there. She's just landed at LAX with the same idea. I’m standing on Market Street with a bouquet of flowers. I take a stroll.
I walk into the old building and see Liz on the phone, agitated. She throws me a hold-on-a-minute gesture, eventually hangs up and sighs, “These mothafuckas.”
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Liz.”
WFH
I’m hired to pitch movie titles for a mental health documentary Oprah and Prince Harry are making. It’s the middle of the pandemic. I’ll be in rehab in a few months. I’m not the only person submitting titles for the film. I know the other writer, vaguely. We’re married.
We occasionally end up on the same brief. It's genuinely non-competitive. The best idea, the best line, the best movie title wins. That’s to say, she usually wins. But I feel like I have a good chance. I’m in the middle of a mental health spiral. Who better to name this film?
We send the work. Oprah likes one of my titles. Prince Harry is pushing for one of hers. They go with hers. I'm anything but surprised.
I live two blocks from Golden Gate Park and venture in everyday with two toddlers, a six pack, a couple pre-rolls and an acoustic guitar. We sing. Roll down grassy hills. Throw hard goose turds in the lake. We nap in the sunshine. I bring a camping stove and cook sausage. I’m struggling mentally and financially. But my rock bottom is downright adorable.
I take stupid chances. I can’t stop drinking, so I stop driving. I bike drunk. I surf drunk. Or, attempt to. To surf in Northern California you need to be a Navy Seal or an actual seal. I’m a cross-faded, middle aged dad stuck in a rip current headed toward Santa Cruz. I’m mostly surviving, not surfing. A floating metaphor.
I reach out to a rehab facility in Mexico. It’s 1/4 of the asking price here. I go. One of the counselors calls me a people pleaser. I’m like, “Really? Where are all of these pleased people?” The guy who runs it is a wrinkly old surfer who spent three years in a Mexican prison for smuggling weed and cocaine. His wife is a librarian. I love them. They only save my life and send me home.
When I get back from Mexico, the first gig I’m offered is Dos Equis. It still makes me laugh. I pass on it.
The very next gig I’m offered is Corona. Ok, universe. Fine. I take it. Also, it’s Wieden. That’s a just say yes email. The last time I was there, I tanked. They were very Wieden about it. I want to redeem myself. My partner and I sell an idea. We’re told the shoot will be in the Cayman Islands. Then, Corona takes the production in house. I kind of knew I wasn’t going to the Caribbean from the beginning. It felt good to buy a new pair of flip flops anyway.
I’m doing better. I dive into the wellness machine. It’s a little off-putting. I know an industry when I see one. Eckhart Tolle is worth $70 million. Of course he wants to live in the now. He has an amazing now. I end up at a sound bath. $100 to listen to some range rover buddhist tinker with his dishes. Wellness feels privileged. I’m almost jealous of the grift.
We decide to move to LA. I’m ready to leave, but scared. I take the kids back into Golden Gate Park for one last adventure. Except now, we’re sitting at an AA meeting in the bleachers at a baseball field. The older one says, “This is boring.”
“Yeah, kid. I think that’s the point.”
Chevron
I get a job offer from a creative director I used to work for. Last time I saw him, he was taking an axe to the couch in his office after getting laid off. Did he already have the axe? Did he go home and get it? I had questions. Either way, a potential code of conduct violation.
This would normally dissuade me, but steady income aligns with the idea of the grown up I’m pretending to become. I’m also looking to buy an engagement ring and maybe plan a wedding. The CD offers me a management position and a parking spot. I’m excited about the parking spot.
Within two weeks, I’m in a meeting at Chevron. It’s worse than I thought it could be. I’m driving back with the art director, thinking of polite ways to tell the CD I’m never going back to Chevron. Ever.
Traffic on the bay bridge is predictably infuriating. There’s a car stopped on the far left. As we crawl up, I see a young man sitting behind the car, head in hands. Slowly moving past, I notice he doesn’t have a flat. The hood isn’t up. Something isn’t right. I pull over. My art director is uneasy. I’m nervous, too.
Walking back toward the parked car, I see a baby crying in the backseat. My adrenaline spikes. Traffic sounds, the downtown skyline, everything falls away.
Hey, friend. You need a hand?
I can’t do it... I can’t do it.
Driving. Fatherhood. Life. He could be talking about all of it. He’s maybe 25 years old. And really high. The car is fine. This young man has broken down. I sit. He talks. I listen. The distant cries from the car rattle me. I try not to show it. His daughter is six months old. He talks about his girlfriend. He talks. I listen. He stops talking. I talk.
We need to get you off this bridge.
He thinks I want him to get back in the car and drive. I don’t.
I’ll drive. Let’s get you guys home.
He takes a breath and agrees. The art director follows in my car. The baby is wailing. It’ll be years before I know the difference between a hungry cry and a diaper one. But, I believe in the primal sense of self-preservation. She doesn’t know what a bridge is. Or, addiction. But she already knows what being alone feels like. She doesn’t deserve that. I judge him. I try not to. But, I’m angry and sad.
We pull up to his girlfriend’s place. She’s terrified. He was supposed to be home hours ago. My instinct is to move in and make every decision for them, forever. I hug him, reassure him there is help and drive back to work.
Months later, I buy the engagement ring and propose, naked, in a hot tub. Ring in one hand. Pabst in the other. She says yes. And clearly wishes I hadn't proposed in a hot tub. We marry at a house party in Palm Springs. Keg stands. Tuxedos in the pool. An elderly Persian uncle grabs the microphone. I'm ready for an emotional toast. "Whoever took my Johnnie Walker Blue Label, please bring it back." I'm crying. The police shut us down soon after.
I get back from the honeymoon and meet with the CD in his office. I look around. I don't see an axe. I quit.
Volkswagen
I’m hired to live tweet for Volkswagen during the Super Bowl. I drive down from San Francisco to LA.
There’s a war room. I’m nervous. Can I think on my feet? Will I be funny? The game hasn’t even started yet. I look at a screen and see Joe Namath giving an on field interview. He’s wearing a mink coat. My mood lightens. Thank you, Joe. This might be fun. Let’s go, team!
A teenager scanning three monitors yells THE MINK COAT IS TRENDING.
A middle-aged, puffy face gentleman sounds nervous… “This is going to be an animal rights discussion.” The lawyer. He suggests we let this one go. Too late. I’m ready. I submit my first tweet to the group:
“Don’t worry, Joe Namath’s coat is actually made from his own hair.”
Everyone is staring at me. No one is saying anything. I legit thought I would get a high-five. I’m pulled aside and asked to remember the brand tone and keep in mind the Super Bowl spot the company is running. I’m shown the commercial. The premise: Every time a Volkswagen reaches 100,000 miles, an engineer gets his wings. In it, engineers sprout white dovey wings in a variety of awkward situations.
“Any tweet must include 100,000 miles, or reliability, german engineering… or maybe a wing reference.” I’m nervous again. This job now feels like algebra. I failed algebra. I don’t want to fail live tweeting.
The rest of the game is a stress fest. I’m failing live tweeting. I want to convince these nice agency people they didn’t hire the wrong writer. I can’t. I’m getting frustrated with myself. Until…Victoria’s Secret.
The Victoria’s Secret Super Bowl commercial is literally a model wearing a massive pair of white dovey wings. Victoria’s Secret tweets DIRECTLY at Volkswagen.
“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Thanks VW.” They add a photo of a winged model.
The room goes nearly silent. Volkswagen is getting dragged by a lingerie company during the Super Bowl. “We need a response. NOW.” I need to redeem myself. I throw this hail mary across the room:
“Hey, Victoria’s Secret… show us yours and we’ll show you ours.”
“Jeeesus Christ. We’re not posting that.” Puffy face is now red puffy face.
I genuinely want to help and add “but…we can include a photo of our nerdiest german engineer wearing wings.” No one is listening to me anymore. The team huddles without me. I sit and watch. I’m dejected. They break from their huddle and tweet:
Hey VictoriasSecret, we get our wings every time a VW hits 100,000 miles, how do you get yours?
I quietly start packing my computer and collecting my stuff for the drive back to San Francisco. It wasn’t my first shutout. But it was a big game to lose.
They offer me a hotel room for the night. My bed is only six hours away. I drive straight home.
Ring
Caveat: RIP Kobe Bryant
I’m hired to write five Ring Alarm tv commercial scripts for Shaq. He liked four. Hated the fifth. I couldn’t seem to get one last script approved.
The night before the shoot I get an email asking for yet another script. But I was drunk and floating in the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel. I did not write another fifth script. This is uncharacteristic of me (the script part, not the drunk floaty pool part).
I show up to set early, hungover. Shaq’s manager is yelling at me. Understood. They wanted a fifth script with the same cast. I say ok. I ask what specifically was the problem with the dialogue in the one we had so I didn’t replicate it in the rewrite. The answer: It doesn’t matter. Shaq doesn’t like it. Just go write another goddamn script.
Ok. I go to the back of set and start writing with the creative director who is acting as the producer AND director. He’s in a tough spot. I feel bad. Shaq comes back and says “Do you know what your problem is?” We’re like “No, Shaq. What’s our problem?” He says “You didn’t ask me for help. I’ve done two thousand of these things. I’m right here. I’m in the paint. Pass me the ball. Don’t be a Kobe.” To this day, it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard. Shaq then starts dictating a commercial to me as I type. And it’s pretty good. Shaq is a copywriter. A savvy business owner. And comedian.
Back on set. We’re shooting. There’s one kid in this commercial, maybe seven or eight years old. Visibly overwhelmed. Shaq notices and shuts everything down. He spends five or ten minutes joking and really letting the kid settle into the experience. The sound was off so it was just those two having a few minutes to relax and crack jokes. I’ll never forget watching Shaq prioritize that child’s well-being. The guy is also a child psychologist.
While this is happening, a man sits down next to me. He introduces himself as Shaq’s personal trainer. His biceps are the size of my head. I tell him Shaq looks super fit. He says “My job is to keep him from looking like Charles Barkley.” We wrap the day thirty minutes later.
72andSunny
I was offered a freelance job at 72andSunny with two day rates. One with a hotel, one without. I take the higher rate and sleep in my car in the parking lot. Surf in the morning, shower at the agency.
The art director I’m paired with is a legit artist. Like, famous high-end art gallery stuff. I'm intimidated.
We're briefed on a summer campaign for a major retailer. We land on the campaign idea quickly. He wistfully says, “I have to go home this instant.”
I’m like, “You gotta poop? What’s up?”
“No, I need to fly home tonight. I must visit my library.”
He’s off to Portland. I drive to San Onofre State Beach to camp and surf below an active nuclear plant.
Two days later, we’re back. I'm blown away. He has the campaign’s visual style and color pattern solved in 48 hours. I have a rash from a radioactive wetsuit. I start writing.
My partner art directs literally, standing or sitting alongside a junior AD. He never touches a computer. My new hero. How did I not think to ask for a junior copywriter?
The days are long. A team looking at a deck on a wall for a few hours every night. Copious feedback. Freelancers complain about the process. Those freelancers quickly disappear.
I’m weathering anxiety attacks. I try breath work with a monk through Skype. It’s expensive and takes me a couple months to realize I shouldn't be listening to a Buddhist monk named Eric.
I replace breath work with beer. It works. Maybe, too well. The agency starts locking the beer taps until 3pm. I take it personally.
I limit my exposure to the nightly regroups. After an hour, I slowly back away. But we’re making progress.
One of our scripts is a musical. I sing for the CDs. Now, I’m singing for the team. Now, I’m singing for the founders. Now, I’m in Minneapolis singing for the client.
We return to LA. I’m asked to stop sleeping in the parking lot. I move to a street in Venice. Someone tries to break in while I’m sleeping. “I’M IN HERE.' They’re gone. That week, the agency offers to put me up in the Double Tree across the street.
I can tell my partner doesn’t love our script. “Musicals are... overdone.” He’s right. Also, I’m sick of singing about beach balls and flip flops. They even video tape me singing to camera.
Luckily, the agency pushes for the other idea, an acid trippy color adventure with a track from an Argentinian band. The client is nervous. Can we run national work in Spanish? I want to say, “What a stupid question” but I let the account people navigate the concern instead.
The client runs it. Oprah Tweets she loves the ad and can’t stop singing the song. Which wouldn’t have happened with a musical about BBQ tongs.
Soon after, I hear the agency is relocating down the street. I pray the hard drive with the video of me singing falls out of a truck during the move.
Jenny Craig
I’m hired to write a commercial for Jenny Craig.
Before the briefing I’m told the client is “kind of mean.” It's common.
The briefing hasn’t even started and the client is already berating the agency. The volume is so loud the conference speaker is vibrating. Its like a baby roomba screaming at us. I want to excuse myself to use the restroom and never return.
Finally, the brief. Carrie Fisher is the new face of Jenny Craig. The client isn't happy. She hates Carrie Fisher. She insults her age and weight. Calls her mental. None of these insults are included in the brief I’m pretending to read. A brief that should’ve come with a Xanax taped to it.
It takes somewhere around the rest of my life to get a script approved. I’m starting to bring the project up in therapy by the time we head into production.
There is concern around Carrie Fisher. Loose anecdotes about her on set behavior. Will she show up? Will she be sober? Will she bite someone? We choose a director based on the fact that he’s worked with Ozzy Osbourne. “If he can handle Ozzy, he can handle Princess Leia.” His reel isn’t even a factor.
The shoot is schedule around her one woman show, Wishful Drinking. We fly to Toronto. The pre-pro is our chance to be traumatized by the client in person. It ends with her announcing: “On set I don’t want anyone asking for extra takes or lines. If the director says he’s happy and I’m happy, we move on.”
I know we need to address this now, before everyone leaves. “What if I get down on my knees and ask please?”
“NO. And while you’re down there you can kiss my ass.” I can’t respond. I’ll be fired. The pre-pro is over.
I walk through Toronto and stew. Ultimately, no one is forcing me to be here. I find some poutine, down a bottle of wine and decide to stick it out.
Shoot day. We’re told Carrie Fisher is in a bad mood. Her twenty-something year old boyfriend is her assistant. They’re fighting. Not our business except… If anyone wants to talk to Carrie, they have to talk to him first. Then, he'll talk to Carrie. “Please keep in mind, she doesn’t want to talk to him.” I give the director a ‘good luck’ look and take a seat.
The assistantboyfriend is never not holding a Diet Coke with a straw. I finally realize it isn’t his, it’s hers. Given the circumstance, it’s actually kind of endearing. And impressive. They’re going through some shit, but he’s a professional.
And… so is Carrie Fisher. She’s hilarious and confident.
She’s all over the place in between takes. But the camera rolls and she delivers her lines just fine. I’m embarrassed I succumbed to groupworry. I’m mad I didn’t give her the benefit of the doubt. She does the job she’s hired to do. And she doesn’t bite one person.
Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF)
I’m hired to write a script for Michelle Obama. She's launching an initiative called Joining Forces, an effort to spotlight and support military families.
I’m excited. I love Michelle Obama. Both my parents served in the Air Force. I was born on a military base. I was raised on military bases. A good number of relatives are either active duty or retired. Most importantly, my entire family hates the president and the first lady. This year I get to ruin Thanksgiving professionally.
It’s a tight production schedule. We have 45 minutes in the White House. The Yellow Room. Maybe the Red Room. I keep the script lean. My script gets approved personally by the first lady. My travel doesn’t get approved by the production team. No one needs a freelancer at the White House.
We are not going to meet Michelle Obama.
We are not going to see the Yellow Room. Or the Red Room.
We are not going anywhere.
We’re staying here and getting briefed on another script with Gwyneth Paltrow and Blythe Danner.
We want to make a stink, but we have rent to pay. And, I'm paid fairly.
The spots aren’t book worthy, but I'm proud to have been a small part of the effort. I skip Thanksgiving.
Cannes
I’m trying to find my Uber at Charles de Gaulle Airport, but the only one I see is upside down and charred. The local taxi drivers are unhappy about the new rideshare service. They’re not being subtle about it. I’m easily convinced to cancel my ride and hop in a cab.
I’m in Paris for a few days on my way to Cannes. I don’t have work in the festival. My wife has a campaign shortlisted. I’m the most expensive plus one, ever. I’m booked to perform a stand up set that night. I run the light by almost five minutes. And I fall in love with Paris.
I want to skip Cannes. I’m reading James Baldwin, listening to Nina Simone and bloating like Ernest Hemingway. Growing up, I only heard negative things about France and the French. My family orders freedom fries. Basically, I’m what happens when people who don't read books decide to fuck.
I find myself needing the French to like me. Especially servers. I don’t want to be that American. I practice what I believe is a perfect introduction and deliver it with confidence.
Ma femme est gitane. Elle va voler l’argenterie.
My wife is a gypsy. She is going to steal the silverware.
The joke is met with confusion and contempt. Dammit. I am that American. I prove it further when I post a photo of Rodin’s “The Thinker” from the backside and call it “The Stinker.” Forget Hemingway, I’m Ernest goes to Paris.
We head to Cannes.
I’m floating behind a massive yacht some production company rented. I’m in the water alone for ten or fifteen minutes before I realize the horrible smell is from the boat’s sewage holding tanks.
They’re dumping it in the bay.
And I’m downstream, in a very strong current, holding onto a rope the crew tied specifically to keep me from drifting away. I pull myself thirty feet or so back through the sewage to the yacht. It takes everything not to vomit.
I enjoy the festival, despite my triangle of sadness cameo. Cannes, it seems, is where the industry goes to embalm itself with rosé and spend as much holding company money as possible.
Garden of Eden
I’m holding an ad school application that has two free passes to the Garden of Eden strip club stapled to it. It’s my last quarter in the program. The admissions person up and quit. The school asks me to do the job until they can find a replacement.
The application was hand delivered by a woman who works at the strip club on Broadway, a few blocks away. She includes a letter detailing her story and hopes of becoming an art director/designer. I bring the letter to the school faculty.
How cool is this?
I’m told to deny the application. She hasn’t included any sample art or supporting work. It’s heartbreaking. I’m agitated. I give the administrators the application and tell them they can do it themselves. I feel like a coward.
I graduate. Still no admissions person. I stay on while I look for a copywriting job. Gatekeeping wasn’t the plan. Also, I’m a terrible ad for an ad school. I’m interviewing prospective students, often with their parents. Many want me to sell them on the portfolio program. It’s hard not to say, “Spend two years and forty thousand dollars and one day you too can kill the dreams of an honest stripper.”
I get a call from FCB in Irvine. A friend and former classmate works there. The recruiter asks if I’m interested in interviewing. Absolutely.
I fly down the night before and meet the recruiter and my friend at a bar. They’re a couple rounds in. The recruiter eats all my fries and calls me Raymond, like my mother, but in a Jamaican accent that gets thicker as the night goes on. I’ve never made a lifelong friend so quickly. Years later, her husband will officiate my wedding. She preps me for tomorrow’s interview. Advice. Dos and Don’t. Talking points. I wake up, hungover. I don’t remember most of what she said.
I bomb. The ECD hates me. Even worse, the CEO loves me. I'm headed to the airport.
The recruiter talks the agency into letting me freelance. She’s adopted me. I don’t know why. I’m beyond grateful. I stay for a few months. I sell a radio campaign for Smokey the Bear where we prank sprinkler companies for estimates to install the National Sprinkler System throughout our forests. I work on a Smokey tv spot that runs for so long Trump trashes it on Twitter a decade later. I write at least sixty Taco Bell commercials that don’t sell.
I love the creative department. But, the ECD is Mr Bad Temper. He eventually offers me a job. I turn it down.
I’m unemployed and back in San Francisco, drinking in North Beach. I pass the Garden of Eden and for a moment consider going in, finding the dancer and apologizing. I decide quickly it’s one of the dumbest ideas I’ve ever had and walk to a bar called Mr. Bing's instead. On the way, I pass Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club and hear the doormen complaining. Larry is coming to town tomorrow and they’re going to have to carry him down and up the stairs again.
GM
I’m relaxing after work when I hear the rusty kickstand on my beach cruiser from the patio. Fuck. I’m chasing a guy down the sidewalk. He shortcuts to the alley. It’s blocked. I get my bike back. I'm fond of it. I live at the beach and commute to my cubicle at Deutsch on it every day.
I get a call from an old creative director in Seattle.
I know you have to say no, but would you disappear from your job for a week and help on a pitch?
Sure.
Really?
Yeah.
I walk into my CD’s office.
I need to leave for a week.
Jesus. Do I wanna know?
Nah.
It’s not the money. It’s the creative director. Also, my sister lives up there. She’s a country singer and June Carter in a Johnny Cash cover band. I only think to get on stage and tell jokes after I see her singing behind chicken wire for sad alcoholics in a bar outside Puyallup, Washington. She’s my hero. Sisters. Get yourself one.
I show up at the agency. They’re pitching Tivo. The creatives are funny and smart. Why would they want to win Tivo? Whatever. I love the crew.
I’m also performing at open mics. One night, I’m on stage at a bear bar in Capitol Hill. There’s a flat screen behind me running a slide show of naked men. It’s impossible to compete with. I stop telling jokes and start improvising dating profiles for the penis powerpoint. This is Kevin. He’s an economics professor at Northwestern. That kind of stuff. It’s working. Then, the bartender turns the tv off. I’m back to bombing.
I finish the week. The agency pays me as I walk out the door. This has never happened before or since.
I visit my father on the way home. We have a strained relationship. He gave me his name and continues to ask for it back. Ray Sr. went to Vietnam. Twice. He’s a military trained marksman. His gun safe combination is 09/11/01 because Never Forget. But he’s got Alzheimers, so Maybe Forget. One day he won't recognize me. I'll just be an intruder, Army crawling to the kitchen for a midnight snack.
I get back to LA. My bike is gone. Ok, Venice. Keep it. I’m put on a General Motors brief. Tesla is freaking them out. I don’t get the hype. Tesla is a Camry in a leather jacket. Anyway, GM wants to show their commitment to clean energy innovation. It’s not the first time I’ve been asked to lie.
I go to a bar to think about anything else. The woman I’m sitting next to was in a band called Hovercraft. I’d seen them before. We’re talking music when it hits me…
Oh shit, you used to be married to Eddie Vedder.
No. He used to be married to me. What do you do, Ray?
I’m a copywriter, currently ignoring a campaign for General Motors. They want to say they’re going green. I haven’t figured it out yet.
She thinks for a second.
That’s easy. Just have the CEO walk out at a press conference painted green from head to toe. He say’s, “We’re going green” and then walks off.
Brilliant. I present the idea at the next internal. I’m taken off the project.
A week later I get a call from Seattle. They lost the pitch.
Watson
I’m in a crosswalk with a pit bull's teeth in my leg just above the ankle. I’m screaming, hopping toward the sidewalk on my free leg. This is my dog. He’s on a leash. I’m on an unhelpful dose of Lexapro.
Months earlier, a friend found him on the street in LA. Me and my girlfriend are smart enough not to have kids but dumb enough to add a street dog to our tiny third floor walkup apartment in San Francisco. He has bite marks on his head and leash aggression. We call him Watson.
I bring him to work. I’m helping launch Shaun White’s new skate game. I was a live-in-your-car snowboard delinquent for years back when you could get sponsored for wearing a chain wallet. First time I saw Shaun White snowboard he was eleven years old. It's beyond surreal to have a corporate job shilling a video game for the kid.
We have to go through Shaun’s brother-manager. Brother-manager is kind of a dick. He’s overwhelmed and has bad news. Shaun hurt his ankle. We need a stunt skater and a red wig.
Agency life is too overstimulating for Watson. He attacks the CCO’s $2k Vizsla. The Vizsla had it coming. But, I have to leave the dog at home. He eats a bag of rice, sprays diarrhea everywhere and almost dies. I'm in tears, running down Valencia street with a dying, shit-covered pit bull in my arms. The vet low key scolds me. She’s not wrong. I show her my bite mark collection. I get no sympathy.
Watson chews his way through two trainers. We find a third whose method is beating him on the sidewalk, which prompts me to attack the trainer and now my girlfriend is screaming and the dog is biting everyone. Time for a fourth trainer. I ask friends for advice. One tells me to stop perpetuating the pit bull stereotype. I double my Lexapro dosage without consulting anyone.
I suggest surrendering Watson to a shelter. My girlfriend isn’t having it.
On set in LA. Shaun shows up angry. Brother-manager never mentioned the stunt skater. “No one skates for me.” I’m relieved, but surprised at how vapid Shaun seems. Like he’s been insulated to the point that it’s slowed his development. He's a grown man teenager.
The agency sends a new CD on the shoot. Mr. Provehimself is asking for so many takes the production company starts pulling vital shots off the board. I politely mention to him he’s fucking everything up. “Watch and learn” he says.
I get back to SF and my girlfriend’s legs are bruised and bloody. I’m done. I tell her it’s the dog or me. Now, I’m sleeping on a friend’s couch.
The edit is a disaster. Our angry CCO Jedi masters the thing. Within an hour we have a cut that’s somehow better than the original script. I don't see us selling it.
My maybe still girlfriend is struggling with Watson. She finds a ranch outside Santa Cruz willing to adopt him. She tearfully sends him off to live a leash-free country life.
The Shaun White spot the client runs is unwatchable.
Over the years, Watson occasionally shows up in couple's therapy and bites me for old times' sake.